Involution; Inner Transformation and Self-Exploration

“Know Thyself” was written over the portal of the antique world. Over the portal of the new world, “Be Thyself” shall be written. – Oscar Wilde

“Know Thyself” often ascribed to the Greeks, is in fact, at the root of most ancient spiritual teachings.

Jesus Christ said: “Neither shall they say, Lo here! or, lo there! for, behold, the kingdom of God is within you.” The first antipope Hippolytus of Rome quoted the same message, first uttered by the Gnostic teacher Monoimus: “Abandon the search for God . . . instead, take yourself as the starting place.”

Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius once spoke: “Be Thyself!” But the question still remains … how can we be ourselves? We barely know ourselves! How can we know where we are going unless we know where we are first?

Journey to the Center of Your Being

If most of us remain ignorant of ourselves, it is because self-knowledge is painful and we prefer the pleasures of illusion. ~ Aldous Huxley

Our external worlds have evolved at an amazing rate but internally, we are not much better off than people a few hundred years ago. Sure we know more about the biology of the brain, are somewhat more empathetically humane and have developed many psycho-analytical systems but most of us know ourselves very superficially.

In reality, we only skim the surface of our identities, we don’t truly dig deeply and analyse our thoughts, feelings, social conditioning’s, habits, ego, desires and dreams.

Finding a Path With Heart

How little do we know that which we are! How less what we may be! ~ Lord Byron

Joseph Campbell offered a guide to living a meaningful and joyful life that can be summarized with his phrase “Follow your bliss”, to find a path in life “…that has been there all the while, waiting for you, and the life that you ought to be living is the one you are living. Wherever you are — if you are following your bliss, you are enjoying that refreshment, that life within you, all the time.”

To find this path, to improve your happiness, you must learn to listen to yourself; listen to the true you, so you can liberate yourself from the false ‘you’ that has been influenced by all the ambitions, pursuits and beliefs that your family, friends and culture has imposed upon you. To find a path with heart is to listen to a very subtle voice in the background, a feeling behind all the noise that your thoughts and ego make.

This voice can only be heard the more you learn to trust and love yourself by listening less to the false personality you carry around with you. Before we can gain Self-Love, however, we must first develop Self-Knowledge, otherwise who are we going to love? If you don’t know who you are, you’ll make the mistake of loving your false personality.

The first step to learn to discover, understand, accept and love ourselves is to find out; who we are, where we are, and why we are the way we are. For the answers to this we must begin our journey of Self-Knowledge.

How to Self-Explore

Knowledge of thyself or Self-Knowledge is an infinitely vast, vague and distant pursuit. It is easier to first strive for something simpler like Self-Exploration.

Self-Exploration or Self-Study is a much more attainable goal, and eventually leads to accumulating knowledge of oneself. This is why this particular level of Involution is known as Self-Exploration and not Self-Knowledge.

In order to start this path, you must first find the right methods of how to study yourself and where to begin. Typically our attention flows exclusively outward to the external object we are considering, be that a person, or a thing.

In the process of Self-Exploration, we are developing the ability to divide our attention; to simultaneously be aware of both our inner selves (our conscious self-awareness) and what we are outwardly considering (be that an external object or internal thought/feeling/instinct).

There are two principal methods to do this, each offering different techniques to accomplish them.

Self-Observation

The first method is a passive one, that of simply ‘registering’ or ‘recording’ our observations. In this practice you are a watcher, you contemplate all that is happening within you without judgement or questioning. You remember all that ‘happens’ within you, where it comes from, how it arises, why it arises.

Some useful techniques of Self-Observation are:

Meditation: By far the most popular technique to observe yourself, it works by dedicating a specific moment of the day to take time out, to find a relaxing quiet place, and requires you to focus your attention away from your thoughts/feelings by using one of many mantras (from the Sanskrit words ‘Man‘ meaning Mind and ‘Tra‘ meaning Instrument).

Mindfulness: Mindfulness is in fact a part of meditation, but a less formal process. It’s been proven scientifically to help us learn about our true selves. Mindfulness can be applied anywhere at any time. In essence, it is paying attention to the present moment purposefully, with intent and without any judgement or resistance towards it. This awareness with intent provides immense clarity, and acceptance of present-moment reality. We become aware that our lives only unfold in moments.

Alternate States Of Consciousness: Trance states of consciousness are states where we become detached from our sense of ‘self’ making us more objective in our self-exploration by removing subjective inhibitions. It works by slowing down our minds (where our fake socialized personalities exist) so we can step out of it and into our bodies to experience our deeper energies and become more in touch with our being, heart and essence. From hypnosis, sensory deprivation, rapid hyperventilation and even exhaustive tribal dancing, many techniques can be used as catalysts to achieve this process.Historically though, one of the most effective ways to enter these states was through the consumption of psycho-active substances such as Psylocibin (found in certain species of mushrooms), DMT (used commonly in Ayahuasca brews) and Mescaline (often found in the Peyote and San Pedro cactus). The attraction to this technique is the ability to immediately experience this sense of wholeness or interconnectedness. The consumption of psycho-active substances was also used in many Self-Exploration spiritual schools as a way of providing a look ahead, as a way of providing a taste of what could be experienced naturally through prolonged work (for example, much evidence has been found of its use in Hindu spiritual teachings and even in Platonic Greece in yearly held rituals).As a paqo trained by the Q’ero shamans I advise against this particular method, as it requires proper guided initiation and can easily become a crutch or distraction for the unprepared.

Self-Analysis

A more popular approach in the scientific East is using psychoanalysis. Personally I find Self-Analysis to be an excellent complimentary method to practicing Self-Observation, which, to me, should be used only after one has observed themselves enough and has a deeper understanding of their inner workings.

Some of the techniques available for the Self-Analytical method include:

The Spiritual Awakening Process eBook:

Discover profound insights and practices that will help you to access deep levels of love and freedom. Explore soul retrieval, shadow work, and more. Start your Spiritual Awakening journey now!

Introspection: This involves inwardly contemplating your thoughts, as well as exploring why you do what you do, and why you think what you do. Introspection is an essential instrument in the goal of achieving Self-Knowledge, and allows us to more deeply understand our strengths and weaknesses. It allows us to not only feel that we’re on a ‘path with a heart’, but also allows us to also go beyond the abstract thoughts and feelings inside of us and understand why.

Psycho-analysis: Psychology is an extremely effective system for the treatment of many neurotic thoughts and habits. There are many schools of psychology from Freud’s to Transactional Analysis. Finding the right system that works for you is essential as each neurotic problem varies from person to person. The only problem is that psychology can only take you so far, it can rid you from many of your neurotic perceptions of reality, but not provide you with a meaningful spiritual path to follow, for instance; it won’t change any of the culturally taught beliefs and ideas you have. And it won’t allow you to transcend your false self.

Trying to escape the mental thought labyrinth by thinking your way out of it won’t work. When you analyse yourself you will come across different phenomena and you will question it: “What is this? Why am I doing this?”

This question will send you on a quest for answers, you’ll search for more and more answers and become so engrossed in this search that you’ll completely lose the notion of Self-Observing yourself and ironically create another neurotic habit.

In the end, the key to your search for Self-Knowledge is balancing your Self-Exploration using Observation and Analysis.

You might also enjoy ...

About Mateo Sol

Mateo Sol is a prominent psychospiritual counselor and mentor whose work has influenced the lives of thousands of people worldwide. Born into a family with a history of drug addiction, schizophrenia, and mental illness, Mateo Sol was taught about the plight of the human condition from a young age. As a spiritual counselor and mentor, Sol’s mission is to help others experience freedom, wholeness, and peace in any stage of life. [Read More]

Support Our Work

We spend hundreds of hours every month writing, editing and managing this website. If you have found any comfort, support or guidance in our work, please consider donating:

There’s a difference between ‘thinking your way out of it’ and analysis of the self by observing your internal thought patterns and deceptions. You can’t think you’re way out of thinking, but you can become aware of your thinking and in doing so liberate yourself from thought.

In one scenario you’re absorbed in thought. In the second scenario you’re the one observing the thought from the distance of your conscious awareness.

Thank you, I understand now. I have just recently embarked on the journey to finding myself and your website is proving to be highly resourceful. I am still facing difficulty as I often get carried away to another downward spiral. Nevertheless, thank you for the amazing content and never stop posting. :)

This was something that took me awhile to understand myself. It seems to me to bethe difference between being deeply immensely in something and just “looking” at something.

Let’s take watching a movie for example. Some movies are so immersive and “brings you in” so well that you become engrossed in them. Movies that are able to suspend our disbelief do these really well. Movies that create new worlds with intense detail and cohesive, enclosed systems (take Star Wars or Lord of the Rings) to me are epitomes of this.

But even then there is a way that you can just observe what’s happening in front of you versus becoming engrossed in it.

When I become deeply imerrsed and paralyzed in fear this is a good way to help realize that I am not my fear. I feel the fear then notice the fear then observe. You can even observe the observer to infinitum.

For me it takes practice going throughout the day and having checkpoints which makes it a habit/automatic.

uh huh, I get it. Point being, not being immersed can make you feel better? I feel like the beginning stages are so difficult and I often end up relapsing into depression and sadness. It is quite a task to train yourself to know yourself better.

It takes immense work Markos but you become better at it with time. There are different ways and you should decide which one works best for you. Eastern approaches like Meditation and Yoga both help us expand that ‘space’ within of conscious awareness so that there is more ’emptiness’ in between each thought.

But esoteric Western traditions are also great; Kaballah, Ritual trance through dancing, sex and shamanic states are all worth exploring.

“Journey To The Center Of Your Being” and “Self-exploration” and the several references to psychoanalysis make me remember Alchemy, and the alchemy of the soul.

The metaphor is so vivid that the old symbollysm of the phylosopher’s stone describes a journey into the earth (a journey inside!): “VITRIOL – Visita Interiora Terrae Rectificando Invenies Occultum Lapidem” meaning “Visit the Interior Parts of the Earth; by Rectification Thou Shalt Find the Hidden Stone”, that ‘magic’ substance which can turn the copper of our vicissitudes into the gold of spiritual enlightment. That which will conduct us to the truth of the eternal life, not making us immortal, but showing us that we are already immortal.

Some mystic writings say that “above the portal of the temple of Apollo, in Delphi, it is written: ‘man, know thyself and thou shalt know the universe and the gods’, and to know oneself, one must learn to listen to his inner master.” Intuition is the voice that comes from whithin. Not only must we listen to that voice, as we must journey and meet our inner self, the one that emmits that voice.

It is a search for meaning, and a search for balance of everything in life, and the references of this in our cultural history are endless (take the myth of Eros and Psyche, for example). One passage attributed to Rumi tells: “Once a man came to his loved one’s door and knocked. ‘Who is there?’ a voice asked. “It is me, my love” the man replied. But the door did not open. The man then went to the desert and into the mountains, fasted and meditated, and a year later he came back. He went to his love’s door and knocked. ‘Who is there?’ a voice asked, and he replied ‘It is yourself!’. The door opened, and he then entered.

The truth is simple, but we often resist accepting it. I do wonder, does acceptance take to self-knowledge, or othe other way around? All I know is that both seem to come at the same time.

I agree, that truth is so simple. It is so simple in fact, that we over complicate it because we try to understand it with the mind.

Truth is there, it exists because we exists. What we call “truth” is in fact a mental quality because everything that exists in the universe is “truthful”, it just “is”, but when we state that something is “truth” we create that opposite possibility, that there are things in life that are “false”.

In your self-exploration you eventually learn that what you find, what you learn about yourself, are experiences of yourself. They are words at the beginning, they are labels, but then eventually you go deeper and deeper till you find there is an empty richness that lies ever presently on the surface of your awareness.

Thank you for sharing your knowledge and interest in self-exploration; it’s an exciting path that is at the core of mastery of oneself :)

I have thought and pondered the wonders of what you wrote, so very happy, as usual, you see the things I see – and you’re spreading the word. I’d usually be ** feel that I am, judged heavily as a “hippy” in our crazy world, but it’s just a perception. Your words sing so true, it only brings confidence and confirmation that there are others who think the same way – hard to find, but exist all the same. YaY.

In having repeated myself like a broken record, it is in the medievil times that the body was deemed separate from the soul (in Western, Christian civilisation) and this is the downfall. Our Souls are a part of us on this journey in our bodies, but when we get sick, it’s our soul talking and our body responding. This is not a present “scientifically proven” (or even considered) in Western medicine, because that would imply you can be cured and don’t need to go to a Doctor and pay again. Oops!

I, in no way, am an expert, but I know people who have been cured by going inward. I mean full blown change, of life style, diet, change your brain atoms and their flow.. It’s also linked with your life path, your sign, your personality dispositions, environment, family base, everything.

This example is a family friend, I met him, little as I was. I need to meet more like him, and then do something about it, like you and Luna are, Sol. Really. He was given three months. Terminal cancer. http://selfhealing.net He did involution. He lives.

I’m so joyful to see that you found such solace and reflection in this article. The more I have self explored, the more I have helped others explore and the more I have heard of personal explorations…the more I realize these words, these thoughts and feelings aren’t mine at all. These desires, these “hippy” feelings have been around way before any contemporary religion. The association with the ‘new age’ hippy thing does affect the validity of the experience which is why I try to refrain from using new age language and trying to keep ‘grounded’. Unfortunately it seems the ‘hippy’ language already attracts hippy inclined people, but to speak to those who need it the most, the ones that can benefit from all this, you must try to keep it in scientific terms…hence “involution” as a spin on the scientific word ‘evolution.

I believe the separation of body and soul began around the time of scientific and technological progression, the dissecting of external alchemy affected also the way we separate our internal selves, it enhanced the disunion. Don’t get me wrong, science is an amazing tool…but it’s just that, a tool, yet we embrace it almost as a perception of life. The materialness of it has made us believe that which can’t be quantified does not exist. Hence it took ‘material’ substances like psychedelics in the 60’s to make ‘hippys’ aware there is more to be experienced from life than what we think.

There is much richness to learn from cultures who never adopted the ‘scientific’ approach. The West has developed science and now that they live longer, better and richer lives they’ve become aware of all that they lack within, so they turn to Eastern i.e Indian, South American. In contrast, the East have immense inner wealth yet are externally poor and so they imitate the West.

I to have observed amazing changes in those who have searched inward paths, the changes in them are inexplicable at first but science slowly is realizing that there is much to learn from the Awakening of Consciousness.
That’s an amazing story! I am happy Chalko is spreading awareness also. From my point of view, it doesn’t matter how they are doing it… each teaching aims towards the same destination, greater awareness of ourselves and consequentially, the world. Every person is different, each will find a different approach attractive to their own culturally upbringing or interests. The important thing is to follow one of those paths.

I have found systematizing “Involution” into words to explain it in theories goes against everything I was taught by my teachers who treat “kawsay” ( universal living energy) as a spirit who must caress you. My journey was an experiential one, Involution is made to be experienced, writing it down appeals to the mind, to our egos, but it is very hard give a taste otherwise.

In modern times, one cannot take you hand and walk you through a journey of self-exploration. One can only use technology and point towards the moon, but many will fall in love with the finger that is pointing and miss out on the moon. Spread Involution, spread awareness, spread love, that is all we can do :)

We Q’ero have a word for this in Quechua, ‘Taripay Pacha’ which means “The age of meeting ourselves again”, it is a time like now where slowly humans are building up the energy to create ore opportunities to consciously evolve into new ways of being.

Primary Sidebar

Search:

Search

About Us

Walk the path less traveled

Our names are Aletheia Luna and Mateo Sol and we currently live in Perth, Western Australia.

Our mission is to help others embrace the path of the lone wolf and listen to the soul’s calling. Our goal is to provide a grounded and balanced perspective of spirituality that doesn’t bypass the raw, real, and messy aspects of spiritual growth or psychological development.

We are deeply drawn to exploring and exposing both the light and shadow side of human nature and spirituality. We strive towards integration, balance, wholeness, and embracing both the sacred and wild aspects of being human. Read more.